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As we know, the Catholic Church has established great respect and honor for the Virgin Mary. In the Middle Ages it was extended to all women. Men fell on their knees and were obedient to women.
John Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies
Lecture II.- Lilies Of Queens’ Gardens:“… Nay, if you can suppose this, take lastly the evidence of facts, given by the human heart itself. In all Christian ages which have been remarkable for their purity or progress, there has been absolute yielding of obedient devotion, by the lover, to his mistress. I say Obedient; – not merely enthusiastic and worshipping in imagination, but entirely subject, receiving from the beloved woman, however young, not only the encouragement, the praise, and the reward of all toil, but, so far as any choice is open, or any question difficult of decision, the direction of all toil. That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonour of which are attributable primarily whatever is cruel in war, unjust in peace, or corrupt and ignoble in domestic relations; and to the original purity and power of which we owe the defence alike of faith, of law, and of love; that chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of honourable life, assumes the subjection of the young knight to the command – should it even be the command in caprice – of his lady. It assumes this, because its masters knew that the first and necessary impulse of every truly taught and knightly heart is this of blind service to its lady: that where that true faith and captivity are not, all wayward and wicked passion must be; and that in this rapturous obedience to the single love of his youth, is the sanctification of all man’s strength, and the continuance of all his purposes. And this, not because such obedience would be safe, or honourable, were it ever rendered to the unworthy; but because it ought to be impossible for every noble youth – it IS impossible for every one rightly trained – to love any one whose gentle counsel he cannot trust, or whose prayerful command he can hesitate to obey.
I do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I think it should commend itself at once to your knowledge of what has been and to your feeling of what should be. You cannot think that the buckling on of the knight’s armour by his lady’s hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth – that the soul’s armour is never well set to the heart unless a woman’s hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honour of manhood fails. …
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Also from a Catholic theologian:
Woman is the final top art work of God
The book by Henricus Cornelius Agrippa:God created:
(…) “proceeding again by ascent, from the more insignificant through all degrees of humor to the perfection of the universe. Thus were created first minerals, then vegetables, plants and trees, followed by animated beings, and finally brute beasts, in order: reptiles, fish, birds, quadrupeds. Again after all this he created two human beings in his image, man first, then woman, in whom the heavens and the earth, and every embellishment of both, are brought to perfection. For when the Creator came to the creation of woman, he rested himself in this creation, thinking that he had nothing more honorable to create; in her were completed and consummated all the wisdom and power of the Creator; after her no creation could be found or imagined. Since, therefore, woman is the ultimate end of creation, the most perfect accomplishment of all the works of God and the perfection of the universe itself, who will deny that she possesses honor surpassing every other creature? Without her the world itself, already perfect to a fault and complete at every level, would have been imperfect; it could only be perfected in the creature of all others by far the most perfect.” (…)“For woman was the last work of God, who introduced her into our world as the queen of a kingdom already prepared for her, adorned and perfect in everything. It is therefore right that every creature love, honor, and respect her; right also that every creature submit to and obey her, for she is the queen of all creatures and their end, perfection, and glory, absolute perfection.” (…)
Since beauty itself is nothing other than the refulgence of the divine countenance and light which is found in things and shines through a beautiful body, women-who reflect the divine-were much more lavishly endowed and furnished with beauty than man. Whence follows the wonderful softness of the female body to sight and touch, her tender flesh, her fair and clear complexion, her shiny skin, the beauty of her head decked with long silky hair shining and supple, the great majesty of her face with its cheerful demeanor, her face the most fair of all creatures… (…) Her voice and her words are agreeable; her chest, large and prominent, makes for a harmonious unity of flesh and of breasts, with the same plumpness on each side both in the firmness of the breasts and in the roundness of both them and the belly. Her sides are supple… (…) in her whole body of a universally attractive proportion and symmetry… (…) There is no other creature who offers a sight so admirable, a similar marvel to behold, to the point that one would have to be blind not to see that God himself has put together in woman all that is beautiful in the whole world. All are dazzled by her beauty and love and venerate her on many accounts… (…)
— Declamation On the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, 1529
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486 – 1535) was a German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier (knight) and theologian. Agrippa studied at the University of Cologne. Agrippa’s academic career began in 1509, receiving the patronage Margaret of Austria, governor of Franche-Comté, and Antoine de Vergy, archbishop of Besançon and chancellor of the University of Dole. He was given the opportunity to lecture a course at the University on scholar Johann Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico. At Dôle, Agrippa wrote De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminae sexus (On the Nobility and Excellence of the Feminine Sex), a work that tried to prove the superiority of women. Agrippa’s lectures received attention, and he was given a doctorate in theology. His life career is extensive, worked as a theologian, legal expert, soldier and physician, in Germany, France and Italy.
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Catholic priest Andreas Capellanus for women:
Dear Lady,
“I believe and it is true that all good men are set in this life by God to serve the desires of yourself and of other ladies, and it seems to me established by the clearest reasoning that men can be nothing nor drink of the fount of goodness, unless they so act under the persuasion of ladies. But though all good things clearly derive from women, and the Lord has granted them so exalted a preference, and they are said to be the cause and source of all good things, a clear obligation lies on them that they must show themselves to men who perform good deeds so that the worth of such men seems to grow in every way from Virtue to virtue under their gaze.”
– The book by Catholic priest Andreas Capellanus, commonly called De amore (“About Love”). Author Andreas Capellanus (André le Chapelain) lived in the 12th century.
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